Finding the answers to secrets often depends on knowing the questions to ask in the first place. Such questions and answers sometime differentiate the craftsman from the artist. The craftsman knows how a thing is done, whereas the artist is more concerned with the discovery of the unknown. The artist goes into the unknown blindly, and each time the venture turns out differently. I think of my work as rather more aligned with the artist than with the craftsman. To me, creativity is another word for invention, and invention is important to me. In art we speak of invention as creativity, whereas in science we speak of it as invention.

Like Red-Hot Pokers, the Sun Brandished Its Rays

I tell my students there are two ways they can go in art. One is through emulation, the other through deviation. We all start at the same place, imitating some person or tradition. A Greek Pot or a Sung dynasty porcelain, for example, brings forth the response: "Oh, how beautiful!" A student may immediately try to make a pot like it, perhaps choosing to follow that style for the rest of her or his life. (Some potters during the 1950s and 60s became enamored with modern Scandinavian design, and have continued in that mode all their lives.) The other direction is deviation from the past. Instead of continuing to repeat history, the alternative is just forging ahead in a different direction, perhaps making a unique contribution. In this matter, I might classify myself as a happy deviant.
    I have tried in lectures and writings to stress to students the importance of being curious. Curiosity is fundamental to invention. Being secure enough to go ahead and act on your curiosity, without a guarantee of any kind, is difficult to do in schools where students are programmed to get permission to pursue an idea. I remember reading in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about a teacher who wanted to free his students in the best way possible and allow them to be innovative, creative and self-sufficient. But they were waiting for him to give them assignments and critiques because they needed a grade. Sometimes students come to me and ask, "if I put this glaze on top of that one, I don't suppose it would work, would it?" They are already negative. They want me to tell them it's OK or it's not OK.
     I got around this problem in my own teaching by removing the value system and replacing it with an emphasis on curiosity and quantity. I said to beginning students: "You can get an A in this class if you try enough things and work hard enough. I will give grades based on the number of pieces you make and their weight. In our first five-week period, you have to complete five pieces in the first week to receive an A, and the pieces have to weigh a total of five pounds. You get a B if you make half that many, and a C if you make half of that. Then the next 5 week period you ought to do more work, so we'll double the numbers. And so forth." This allowed the hardest working students to go ahead, opening every-thing up to trial and error, without judging the quality or success of the pieces. Students would say, "Well, what about the quality?" and I would answer, "That's your problem. All I'm interested in is that you learn how to do something. You don't have to ask permission. You don't have to ask me what you should make. If you just end up making bongs, that's OK by me." They asked: "What if the pots blow up?" I said, "Just bring me the pieces and we'll weigh and count them."

A Faint Cry of Pain Was Wrenched From His Lips

I enjoy workshops partly because I'm a teacher. Teaching is giving secrets, giving information. I also enjoy the challenge of working in totally strange situations. I came to appreciate that when Hamada Shoji came to USC to do a workshop. He used the house clay and glazes, but when the workshop was finished, the pots were still Hamada's. I like a challenge like that. I like dropping in out of the sky with my case of slides and tools, and working with what's there.
     Another value of workshops is producing work under the pressure of people watching. Sometimes you take chances and risks you don't normally take, which can lead in surprising directions.
     One of the first times I realized that my work was becoming more sculptural was during a workshop I was giving at Peters Valley, New Jersey. Under the pressure of making a great deal of work quickly, I made a pot and put a top on it almost as big as the body. In retrospect, I realize that at the time I was inching in that direction anyway, making the tops of my pots more important than the bases. There was no value judgment on my part; I just put two parts together. Later, when I looked at what I had done, I decided that since I was going in that direction anyway, I might as well push it further, and, subsequently, the tops became bigger and bigger, until now the base is hardly more than a little pivot for the top.
I work almost entirely from intuition. People say, "Don't you make drawings or sketches?" I often reply, "If I make a drawing of a piece, I've already lost interest in discovery. I'd much rather create something new." Often I set up what I call a "creative problem"; that is, a series of random clay objects, some slabs, some vheel-made, without any preconceived notion of how to use them. Then I put them together, rather like making teapots, where, if you can't make a top to fit every time, make six tops and choose one. In randomness there is order. I am confident I will somehow solve it.